TellTale games hit a major home run last year with the re-introduction of two of gaming’s most comical adventure characters: Sam & Max. These characters were originally popularized in the early 90s when LucasArts released a PC adventure game: Sam & Max Hit the Road. Unfortunately, the PC adventure genre was on the outs at the time, and adventure/puzzle games haven’t been popular (except for Myst, perhaps). Great adventure games like Myst have made it through the adventure recession, proving that a game can always be successful if it’s great.
For those who don’t know already, Sam & Max is an episodeis series of adventure games created by Steve Purcell. TellTale games had greatly improved upon the original game by making their series fully 3d, which even PCs from several years ago are powerful enough to run.
The story arc carries over from Season One, and the theme appears to be hypnosis. In Culture Shock, Brady Culture is hypnotizing the Soda Poppers. In Situation: Comedy, Myra has been hypnotized by the villians of episode 3 (the Toy Mafia). In Episode 4, the Toy Mafia was a pawn of a consipiracy by someone in the U.S. Government (who ended up being The Internet itself). The Internet in turn was a puppet of Hugh Bliss, who has been trying to hypnotize the entire world into becoming followers of the Prismatology cult. In the last episode of Season One, Sam and Max confront Hugh Bliss himself, who is actually a colony of bacteria that feeds on “true bliss”.
Sam is the voice of reason in the duo, and wears a clichéd detective fedora hat and wide tie. Max is a “hyperkinetic rabbity thing” and is rather hyper and violent (his usual solution to problems is to beat them into a pulp in various creative, but disturbing, ways.
There have been a few improvements to Season Two, primarially in the usability department. While the game still uses a “point and click” interface, Sam can roam free around the set by clicking and holding your mouse. Wherever you drag the mouse is where Sam will walk. If you click on an object that’s relatively far away from Sam, then he will run there, which saves the impatient gamer from watching him schlep across the screen).
Also, the game’s engine now supports wide-screen resolutions! If you have one of those new-fangled widescreen displays with a 16:9 or 16:10 ratio, then you can use the native resolution of your LCD monitor. This helps to present more of the scene and is a nice improvement.
There are also an assortment of mini-games strewn throughout Season Two. For example, the opening credits (which after solving the story’s introduction puzzle) has a “shooting gallery” minigame, where the cursor turns into a crosshair and you can shoot images from previously solved cases.
The sound is also very good in the game. This type of game doesn’t need truly positional surround sound. The game’s great sound design comes in the form of a good soundtrack and superb voice acting. The background music ranges from a “film-noir” mystery music to a christmasy-themed montage of several tunes, and are excellently arranged.
Season Two starts out with the Maintron demolishing the city, and Sam & Max get involved when the mechanical moster starts to wreck their building (and destroy their watercooler fish). The Maimtron is a philisophical sort, who finds wisdom within 80s rock lyrics. Alot of the puzzles in the series involves talking with other characters, who then reveal a clue or vunerability after the dialog.
To defeat the Maimtron, you have to pull the windkey from his back (the Maintron is apparently just a huge wind-up toy). When you ask him a lyrically-themed philisophical question (“Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?”), he turns his back, which positions the windup key right outside your office window. The solution is to get the robot to turn his back and then run up to your office and pull the key from his back. The Maintron’s final epitath is from Queen: “and another one bites the dust”.
Sam & Max discover a gift tag from Santa on their fallen foe, which whisks them off to the North Pole to solve the case…
Sam & Max Season Two continues the formula that has made the previous series a success. TellTale continues the wry wit of the good cop / insane cop to create a satisfying game that now has alot of backstory.
If you enjoyed the previous games, then you’ll continue to like this new Season. There are lots of inside jokes from previous episodes, but you don’t have to have played through the previous games to enjoy it. Many gamers will play the game as an interactive movie, selecting every piece of dialog to hear every last punchline. Those that simply want to get through the game as quickly as possible aren’t “adventure game” material, and will miss out on the game’s charm.
If you already have a GameTap subscription, then the game won’t cost you anything more… just login to your account and play. If you haven’t played any of the games yet, then you can play all of the games for $9.99, which is a major steal. If you want to buy an individual episode to have forever (either from Steam or directly from TellTale), they cost less than $10 each.
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